Hagley Digital Archive

The Hagley Digital Archives provides online access to selected items from the Hagley Library's collection of images, documents, and publications related to the history of business, technology, and society.

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About this collection

In 1910, the chemical company E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company purchased the Fabrikoid Company of Newburgh, New York, which had developed a textile coating process. The process was used in upholstery, luggage, automobile fabrics, and bookbinding.This is a portfolio of separate pages with two photographs per page placed in a folder made of blue Fabrikoid. The photos illustrate the use of Fabrikoid upholstery in a variety of commercial and residential interior applications, including wall coverings in store window displays, seating and side walls in aircraft, draperies, screens, table tops, as well as furniture. The interior decorating work illustrated in this portfolio is credited to some well-known modernist designers and architects: Raymond M. Hood, John Mead Howells, Winold Reiss, Eugene Schoen, Joseph Urban, and O.W. Wentz. Public buildings shown include the Palm Beach, Florida Hotel, the Tavern Club, Hotel Bossert, Panhellenic Club, and Little Carnegie Theatre.Image: Showroom of Ypilanti Reed Furniture Co., ca. 1930. Click here to view this item in the digital collection.